LIV Golf: English golfers should follow Scottish example

Published: 11 June 2022 Last updated: 13 June 2022

Scotland's Bob MacIntyre spoke out against the LIV Golf Series.

Suddenly It feels like everywhere that the Scots are showing the English how to behave.

First, it was the football fans applauding the Ukrainian supporters at Hampden Park after their team had lost that World Cup qualifier.

Compare this to England fans being arrested in Munich on Tuesday for doing Nazi salutes ahead of a match against Germany.

That was after two-thirds of Scottish Tory MPs voted against Boris Johnson in Monday’s no-confidence vote. If only their England counterparts could have done the same in similar numbers.

Now, this week, we saw the first Saudi Arabian-sponsored golf tournament in the UK, a hugely controversial event that threatens to tear apart the world of that particular sport.

And guess what? Not a single Scottish golfer in sight.

Instead, we have a parade of English golfers, many of whom are already multi-millionaires, sticking two fingers up to the official tours where they made their fortunes, so they can cash in the petrol millions on offer.

With Saudi riyal banknotes stuffed in their back pockets, they are prepared to risk a life ban from the PGA and DP World Tours in a move that, if enough follow suit, could scupper the traditional tours and potentially the majors themselves.

Dustin Johnson has resigned his PGA Tour membership and won't be able to play in the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup.

Some of the contestants, such as the American Dustin Johnson and the Spaniard Sergio Garcia, have already resigned from the PGA Tour meaning neither can play in the next Ryder Cup.

Others – 17 in all – were banned by the PGA Tour in the aftermath of the tee-off, with the DP World Tour yet to respond.

The amount of money on offer is eye-watering; Tiger Woods turned down almost £1billion to sign up to the LIV-Golf International Series whose inaugural tournament is at The Centurion Club, St Albans, this week, with seven more to follow.

However, £120m was enough to persuade six-times major winner, Phil Mickelson to join the ‘rebel tour’. Johnson, the World no13 got £100m, with Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio Garcia other big-name signings.

Bryson DeChambeau seemingly ruled out a move to LIV Golf just a week before joining.

There are no less than ten English golfers taking part, including former World No 1, Lee Westwood, Ryder Cup hero Ian Poulter, Laurie Canter, Oli Fisher and Sam Horsfield .

This compares with the fact that none of the 12 Scots who hold full DP World Tour cards have joined Greg Norman’s breakaway bid.

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Bob MacIntyre, Scotland’s top-ranked professional, said of the Saudi Tour which is due to host eight events offering a total prize pot of £180m: “There’s crazy, crazy money getting thrown at it.

“If you ask me it’s obscene money to be throwing at sport. There’s only so much money that human needs”.

Quite right. When someone like Sergio Garcia, with £50m in his pocket, says he’s just ‘trying to achieve things’ for his family, you’re left wondering: ‘How much do they need?”

Some golfers have displayed astonishing ignorance in their attempts to justify teaming up with Saudi Arabia.

You would expect someone like Lee Westwood to know what the term ‘sportswashing’ meant, at the very least that it is a ‘bad thing’.

Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood could both damage their Ryder Cup captaincy hopes by playing in the LIV Golf Series.

The term was coined by Amnesty International to describe countries with toxic human rights reputations who use the glamour of sport to distract from the bad publicity they get from torturing and killing people.

And yet, in an interview with Sky Sports, Westwood was happy to admit that sportswashing was pretty much what he was doing.

“Saudi Arabia know they’ve got issues,” he said. “I think they’re trying to improve. They’re trying to do it through sport, which a lot of countries do”.

Hang on. You do not improve a country’s human rights record through sport. You achieve that when you stop torturing, imprisoning and killing people.

The sport bit is when you want to distract people from all the bad things you are doing because, by the very word ‘sportswashing’, you are using it to cleanse a country of its bad reputation.

Westwood is 49-years-old – and World Number 58 – the sort of golfer coming to the end of his career which the Saudi project is most likely to attract. But for it to truly succeed – and turn the world of golf as we know it upside-down – it needs to attract the world’s best to form its own breakaway league.

Mainly due to the opposition of top golfers like Rory McIlroy (it’s the human rights, stupid), and Tiger Woods, that hasn’t happened in sizeable numbers – yet.

Everyone is waiting to see what long-term punishments the PGA Tour will hand out to anyone who plays in the Saudi event, having refused to release them from their contracts to do so. An indefinite ban is in place as it stands, but will that become a lifetime ban?

In the meantime don’t believe the words of players who say the Saudi project poses no threat to the PGA and DP World Tours, that they can operate alongside one another. That may be true for the LIV invitational series, but not the 14-tournament Super League that CEO Greg Norman, the former Open Champion, envisages by 2024.

That is aimed at replacing the traditional tours because golfers just won’t have the time or inclination to do both.

Graeme McDowell is among those risking their futures on the world's other golf tours by signing up for the LIV Golf Series.

You’re always going to get sport stars who play the “I’m a golfer, not a politician” card when the going gets bumpy, as Graeme McDowell, from Northern Ireland, did this week.

He even said he was pleased to be helping Saudi Arabia improve.

Asked how golf would help “the women oppressed in Saudi Arabia, the migrant groups, the LGBTQ+ individuals who are criminalised, the families of the 81 executed…and those being bombed in Yemen”, McDowell was left in stunned silence before eventually saying it was a “really hard question to get into”.

Let’s be honest about those teeing off at the Centurion Club this week: we can forget about their claims to be getting involved in an exciting new project which will grow the game of golf.

This Is all about them and how much money they can make, even if it involves doing PR for one of the most notorious countries in the world.

Suddenly It feels like everywhere that the Scots are showing the English how to behave.

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